History: the Struggle for Liberty an Extended Seminar with Ralph Raico
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History: The Struggle for Liberty An Extended Seminar with Ralph Raico The lessons we draw from history depend on what we regard as the main theme of history. Professor Ralph Raico, as the leading classical liberal historian of our time, believes that the main theme is also the most neglected: the rise of liberty against the despotism of the state. In pursuing this theme in this wonderful classroom course, Raico is taking up a project initiated by the brilliant 19th century historian Lord Acton, and variously pursued by great scholars such as Mises, Hayek, and Rothbard. Raico dis- cusses the origin of the idea of liberty, its growth, its friends and enemies throughout history, and its possible future. As Raico makes clear, the history of liberty is intertwined with the history of Europe and its outposts—the Europe that has been sometimes defined as extending from Warsaw to San Francisco. Raico argues that the idea of liberty arose specifically in Western Christendom for geographic, intellectual, ideological, and theological reasons. He dis- cusses the events, ideas, debates, and institutions that were crucial in the process of creating the “European miracle” of the most astonishing advance of civilization in history. Throughout this 10-lecture course, Raico draws attention to literature, personalities, and events that made the differ - ence. Most importantly, Raico discusses the origin and effects of what Ludwig von Mises called the “primordial thing: the idea of freedom from the state.” The roots of this idea extend far back into the middle ages and the early centuries of Christianity. They came to fruition in the Industrial Revolution, which is vigorously defended, and were never more assaulted than in the French and Bolshevik Revolutions. The relationship between liberty and empire is also discussed, with special reference to the problem of American imperialism. This course would be enormously valuable in any time, but it is especially essential in ours when the theme of liber - ty has been so neglected in scholarly literature and the popular press. This course serves as an antidote to what many have learned in their colleges and universities, which have demonized the history of Europe as one long period of exploitation and genocide. The best response to this calumny, Raico shows, is a detailed survey of the ideas, peoples, technologies, achievements, not in order to dismiss the crimes of the men of power but to draw attention to the rare accomplishments of the idea of liberty itself. Ralph Raico, professor of European history at Buffalo State College, and Schlarbaum laureate, is the author of a histo- ry of German liberalism, Die Partei der Freiheit, and such articles as “World War I: The Turning Point” and “Rethinking Churchill” in the The Costs of War. Raico has a gift for presenting history in a manner that is authoritative, clear, calm, and systematic, but also rich in detail and filled with moral passion. They are graduate-level lectures that can also be of enormous valuable for anyone from high school to lifetime learners of any age. This is a set of lectures to treasure and learn from again and again. Supplemental to: History: The Struggle for Liberty An Extended Seminar with Ralph Raico Books on the Meaning and History of Liberty by David Gordon The following reading list includes about 125 books, useful for understanding liberty and the system of individual enterprise. It emphasizes, with a few exceptions, modern rather than historical works. It makes no claim to be compre- hensive and is nothing more than an introduction to a vast literature. Only books currently in print have been included. 2 Acton, Lord. Selected Writings of Lord Acton, 3 volumes, edited by J. Rufus Fears (Indianapolis, Ind.: Liberty Fund, 1988). A comprehensive collection of essays by a great nineteenth-century classical liberal. Acton distrusted political power, especially when used for allegedly moral aims. Volumes include: Essays in the History of Liberty, Essays in the Study and Writing of History, and Essays in Religion, Politics, and Morality. Adams, Charles. For Good and Evil: The Impact of Taxes on the Course of Civilization (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 1993). Adams, in a tour de force, interprets world history as the story of taxation and resistance to it. ________. When in the Course of Human Events (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000). An excellent defense of the Southern view of the Civil War. Lincoln does not fare well. The comparison of Charles Dickens and John Stuart Mill on the Civil War is especially well done. Anderson, Benjamin. Economics and the Public Welfare (New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1949). Anderson, a free-mar - ket economist who worked for the Chase Manhattan Bank, gives a detailed criticism of Roosevelt’s New Deal. Far from getting the economy out of the Great Depression, the New Deal made matters worse. Aristotle. Ethics and Politics. These basic works set the foundation for all later Western moral and political thought. Rothbard’s natural rights libertarianism draws heavily on certain Aristotelian themes, while rejecting others. Barnett, Randy. The Structure of Liberty (New York: Clarendon Press, 1998). An important defense of libertarian legal theory. Barnett argues for libertarian rights on grounds of knowledge, interest, and power. Bastiat, Frédéric. Economic Sophisms (Princeton, N.J.: D. Van Nostrand, 1964). This includes some of Bastiat’s clas- sic satirical essays attacking protective tariffs and other interventionist measures. He stresses the unseen results of laws designed to “help” various groups. ________. The Law (Los Angeles: Phamphletters, 1944). Criticizes planners who regard people as material to be molded into a pattern; Hayek took up this line of thought in The Road to Serfdom (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1944). Bauer, Peter T. From Subsistence to Exchange and Other Essays (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000). Bauer, the foremost free-market expert on development economics, shows that state planning hurts economic growth. Planners characteristically ignore small traders, whose activities are vital. 3 Belloc, Hillaire. The Servile State (Indianapolis, Ind.: Liberty Classics, 1977). A prescient warning against welfare- state measures that erode individual responsibility. Benson, Bruce. The Enterprise of Law (San Francisco: Pacific Research Institute, 1990). Almost everyone argues that protection must be provided by a state that holds a monopoly of force. Benson subjects this belief to withering assault. Law and protection have often in history been secured by private means. Berger, Raoul. Government By Judiciary: The Transformation of the Fourteenth Amendment, 2nd ed. (Indianapolis, Ind.: Liberty Fund., 1999). Strong indictment of the U.S. Supreme Court for usurpation of power, especially through misreading of the Fourteenth Amendment. Berger defends original intent in interpretation. Bethell, Tom. The Noblest Triumph: Property and Prosperity through the Ages (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1998). Bethell indicts economics for giving no adequate account of the nature and significance of property rights. Böhm-Bawerk, Eugen von. The Exploitation Theory of Socialism-Communism, 3rd rev. ed. (Spring Mills, Penn.: Libertarian Press, 1975). This is an excerpt from the author’s massive three volume Capital and Interest (South Holland, Ill.: Libertarian Press, 1959), which the dedicated may wish to attempt. Böhm-Bawerk destroys Marx’s labor theory of value. Bradford, M.E. A Better Guide Than Reason: Federalists and Anti-Federalists (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1994). Bradford, an outstanding Southern literary scholar, denies that equality is a basic value in American history. Offers strong criticism of Lincoln as a leveling dictator. ________. The Reactionary Imperative: Essays Literary and Political (Peru, Ill.: Sherwood Sugden, 1989). A collec- tion of essays that stresses the influence of rhetoric on politics. Buchanan, James M. Cost and Choice: An Inquiry in Economic Theory (Chicago: Markham Publishing, 1969). Buchanan offers a strong argument for the Austrian subjective view of costs. Buchanan saw in the 1960s, much against the mainstream, that Mises was correct about socialist calculation. Burckhardt, Jacob. Reflections on History (Indianapolis, Ind.: Liberty Fund, 1979). The great Swiss historian indicts power as evil. For this he was bitterly criticized by Carl Schmitt and the Nazi intellectual historian Christoph Steding. 4 Chesterton, G.K. What’s Wrong With the World? (New York: Dodd, Mead, and Co., 1920). Chesterton uses his immense gift for paradox to show the fallacies of those in revolt against the natural order. He refuted contemporary feminism in advance of its birth. Conquest, Robert. The Great Terror: Stalin’s Purge of the Thirties (New York: Macmillan, 1968). The gruesome har - vest of Stalinism. Communist mass murders did not deter many Western intellectuals from championing the “Soviet Experiment.” Constant, Benjamin. Constant: Political Writings, Biancamaria Fontana, ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004). Constant’s distinction between ancient and modern liberty is an essential insight. Courtoise, Stephane et al. The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999). Mass murder is a constant characteristic of Communist regimes. The comparison of Soviet and Nazi atrocities was too much for some French bien pensants. Creveld, Martin van. The Rise and Decline